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GREP(1)				 User Commands			       GREP(1)

NAME
       grep, egrep, fgrep - print lines matching a pattern

SYNOPSIS
       grep [OPTIONS] PATTERN [FILE...]
       grep [OPTIONS] [-e PATTERN | -f FILE] [FILE...]

DESCRIPTION
       grep  searches the named input FILEs (or standard input if no files are
       named, or if a single hyphen-minus (-) is given as file name) for lines
       containing  a  match to the given PATTERN.  By default, grep prints the
       matching lines.

       In addition, two variant programs egrep and fgrep are available.	 egrep
       is  the	same  as  grep -E.   fgrep  is	the  same  as grep -F.	Direct
       invocation as either egrep or fgrep is deprecated, but is  provided  to
       allow historical applications that rely on them to run unmodified.

OPTIONS
   Generic Program Information
       --help Print  a	usage  message	briefly summarizing these command-line
	      options and the bug-reporting address, then exit.

       -V, --version
	      Print the version number of grep to the standard output  stream.
	      This  version  number should be included in all bug reports (see
	      below).

   Matcher Selection
       -E, --extended-regexp
	      Interpret PATTERN as an extended regular	expression  (ERE,  see
	      below).  (-E is specified by POSIX.)

       -F, --fixed-strings
	      Interpret	 PATTERN  as  a	 list  of  fixed strings, separated by
	      newlines, any of which is to be matched.	(-F  is	 specified  by
	      POSIX.)

       -G, --basic-regexp
	      Interpret	 PATTERN  as  a	 basic	regular	 expression  (BRE, see
	      below).  This is the default.

       -P, --perl-regexp
	      Interpret PATTERN as a Perl regular expression.  This is	highly
	      experimental and grep -P may warn of unimplemented features.

   Matching Control
       -e PATTERN, --regexp=PATTERN
	      Use  PATTERN  as	the  pattern.	This  can  be  used to specify
	      multiple search patterns, or to protect a pattern beginning with
	      a hyphen (-).  (-e is specified by POSIX.)

       -f FILE, --file=FILE
	      Obtain  patterns	from  FILE,  one  per  line.   The  empty file
	      contains zero patterns, and therefore matches nothing.   (-f  is
	      specified by POSIX.)

       -i, --ignore-case
	      Ignore  case  distinctions  in  both  the	 PATTERN and the input
	      files.  (-i is specified by POSIX.)

       -v, --invert-match
	      Invert the sense of matching, to select non-matching lines.  (-v
	      is specified by POSIX.)

       -w, --word-regexp
	      Select  only  those  lines  containing  matches  that form whole
	      words.  The test is that the matching substring must  either  be
	      at  the  beginning  of  the  line,  or  preceded	by  a non-word
	      constituent character.  Similarly, it must be either at the  end
	      of  the  line  or	 followed by a non-word constituent character.
	      Word-constituent	characters  are	 letters,  digits,   and   the
	      underscore.

       -x, --line-regexp
	      Select  only  those  matches  that exactly match the whole line.
	      (-x is specified by POSIX.)

       -y     Obsolete synonym for -i.

   General Output Control
       -c, --count
	      Suppress normal output; instead print a count of matching	 lines
	      for  each	 input	file.  With the -v, --invert-match option (see
	      below), count non-matching lines.	 (-c is specified by POSIX.)

       --color[=WHEN], --colour[=WHEN]
	      Surround	the  matched  (non-empty)  strings,  matching	lines,
	      context  lines,  file  names,  line  numbers,  byte offsets, and
	      separators (for fields and groups of context lines) with	escape
	      sequences	 to display them in color on the terminal.  The colors
	      are  defined  by	the  environment  variable  GREP_COLORS.   The
	      deprecated  environment  variable GREP_COLOR is still supported,
	      but its setting does not have priority.  WHEN is never,  always,
	      or auto.

       -L, --files-without-match
	      Suppress	normal	output;	 instead  print the name of each input
	      file from which no output would normally have been printed.  The
	      scanning will stop on the first match.

       -l, --files-with-matches
	      Suppress	normal	output;	 instead  print the name of each input
	      file from which output would normally have  been	printed.   The
	      scanning	will  stop  on	the  first match.  (-l is specified by
	      POSIX.)

       -m NUM, --max-count=NUM
	      Stop reading a file after NUM matching lines.  If the  input  is
	      standard	input  from a regular file, and NUM matching lines are
	      output, grep ensures that the standard input  is	positioned  to
	      just  after the last matching line before exiting, regardless of
	      the presence of trailing context lines.  This enables a  calling
	      process  to resume a search.  When grep stops after NUM matching
	      lines, it outputs any trailing context lines.  When  the	-c  or
	      --count  option  is  also	 used,	grep  does  not output a count
	      greater than NUM.	 When the -v or --invert-match option is  also
	      used, grep stops after outputting NUM non-matching lines.

       -o, --only-matching
	      Print  only  the	matched	 (non-empty) parts of a matching line,
	      with each such part on a separate output line.

       -q, --quiet, --silent
	      Quiet;  do  not  write  anything	to  standard   output.	  Exit
	      immediately  with	 zero status if any match is found, even if an
	      error was detected.  Also see the -s  or	--no-messages  option.
	      (-q is specified by POSIX.)

       -s, --no-messages
	      Suppress	error  messages about nonexistent or unreadable files.
	      Portability note: unlike GNU grep, 7th Edition Unix grep did not
	      conform to POSIX, because it lacked -q and its -s option behaved
	      like GNU grep's -q option.  USG-style grep also  lacked  -q  but
	      its  -s  option  behaved	like GNU grep.	Portable shell scripts
	      should avoid both -q and -s and  should  redirect	 standard  and
	      error output to /dev/null instead.  (-s is specified by POSIX.)

   Output Line Prefix Control
       -b, --byte-offset
	      Print  the 0-based byte offset within the input file before each
	      line of output.  If -o (--only-matching) is specified, print the
	      offset of the matching part itself.

       -H, --with-filename
	      Print  the  file	name for each match.  This is the default when
	      there is more than one file to search.

       -h, --no-filename
	      Suppress the prefixing of file names on  output.	 This  is  the
	      default  when there is only one file (or only standard input) to
	      search.

       --label=LABEL
	      Display input actually  coming  from  standard  input  as	 input
	      coming  from  file  LABEL.   This is especially useful for tools
	      like zgrep, e.g., gzip -cd foo.gz | grep --label=foo something

       -n, --line-number
	      Prefix each line of output with the 1-based line	number	within
	      its input file.  (-n is specified by POSIX.)

       -T, --initial-tab
	      Make  sure  that the first character of actual line content lies
	      on a tab stop, so that the alignment of tabs looks normal.  This
	      is  useful  with	options that prefix their output to the actual
	      content: -H,-n, and -b.  In order	 to  improve  the  probability
	      that lines from a single file will all start at the same column,
	      this also causes the line number and byte offset (if present) to
	      be printed in a minimum size field width.

       -u, --unix-byte-offsets
	      Report  Unix-style  byte	offsets.   This	 switch causes grep to
	      report byte offsets as if the file were a Unix-style text	 file,
	      i.e.,  with  CR  characters  stripped  off.   This  will produce
	      results identical to running  grep  on  a	 Unix  machine.	  This
	      option  has  no  effect unless -b option is also used; it has no
	      effect on platforms other than MS-DOS and MS-Windows.

       -Z, --null
	      Output a zero byte (the ASCII  NUL  character)  instead  of  the
	      character	 that normally follows a file name.  For example, grep
	      -lZ outputs a zero byte after each  file	name  instead  of  the
	      usual  newline.	This option makes the output unambiguous, even
	      in the presence of file names containing unusual characters like
	      newlines.	  This	option	can  be	 used  with commands like find
	      -print0, perl -0, sort -z, and xargs  -0	to  process  arbitrary
	      file names, even those that contain newline characters.

   Context Line Control
       -A NUM, --after-context=NUM
	      Print  NUM  lines	 of  trailing  context	after  matching lines.
	      Places  a	 line  containing  a  group  separator	(--)   between
	      contiguous  groups  of  matches.	With the -o or --only-matching
	      option, this has no effect and a warning is given.

       -B NUM, --before-context=NUM
	      Print NUM	 lines	of  leading  context  before  matching	lines.
	      Places   a  line	containing  a  group  separator	 (--)  between
	      contiguous groups of matches.  With the  -o  or  --only-matching
	      option, this has no effect and a warning is given.

       -C NUM, -NUM, --context=NUM
	      Print  NUM  lines of output context.  Places a line containing a
	      group separator (--) between contiguous groups of matches.  With
	      the  -o  or  --only-matching  option,  this  has no effect and a
	      warning is given.

   File and Directory Selection
       -a, --text
	      Process a binary file as if it were text; this is equivalent  to
	      the --binary-files=text option.

       --binary-files=TYPE
	      If the first few bytes of a file indicate that the file contains
	      binary data, assume that the file is of type TYPE.  By  default,
	      TYPE  is	binary,	 and  grep  normally outputs either a one-line
	      message saying that a binary file	 matches,  or  no  message  if
	      there  is no match.  If TYPE is without-match, grep assumes that
	      a binary file does not match;  this  is  equivalent  to  the  -I
	      option.	If TYPE is text, grep processes a binary file as if it
	      were text; this is equivalent to the -a option.	Warning:  grep
	      --binary-files=text  might output binary garbage, which can have
	      nasty side effects if the	 output	 is  a	terminal  and  if  the
	      terminal driver interprets some of it as commands.

       -D ACTION, --devices=ACTION
	      If  an  input  file  is  a device, FIFO or socket, use ACTION to
	      process it.  By  default,	 ACTION	 is  read,  which  means  that
	      devices are read just as if they were ordinary files.  If ACTION
	      is skip, devices are silently skipped.

       -d ACTION, --directories=ACTION
	      If an input file is a directory, use ACTION to process  it.   By
	      default,	ACTION	is read, which means that directories are read
	      just as if  they	were  ordinary	files.	 If  ACTION  is	 skip,
	      directories  are	silently  skipped.  If ACTION is recurse, grep
	      reads all files  under  each  directory,	recursively;  this  is
	      equivalent to the -r option.

       --exclude=GLOB
	      Skip   files  whose  base	 name  matches	GLOB  (using  wildcard
	      matching).  A file-name  glob  can  use  *,  ?,  and  [...]   as
	      wildcards,  and  \  to  quote  a wildcard or backslash character
	      literally.

       --exclude-from=FILE
	      Skip files whose base name matches any of	 the  file-name	 globs
	      read  from  FILE	(using	wildcard  matching  as described under
	      --exclude).

       --exclude-dir=DIR
	      Exclude directories matching  the	 pattern  DIR  from  recursive
	      searches.

       -I     Process  a  binary  file as if it did not contain matching data;
	      this is equivalent to the --binary-files=without-match option.

       --include=GLOB
	      Search only files whose base name matches GLOB  (using  wildcard
	      matching as described under --exclude).

       -R, -r, --recursive
	      Read  all	 files	under  each  directory,	 recursively;  this is
	      equivalent to the -d recurse option.

   Other Options
       --line-buffered
	      Use line buffering on output.   This  can	 cause	a  performance
	      penalty.

       --mmap If  possible, use the mmap(2) system call to read input, instead
	      of the default read(2) system call.  In some situations,	--mmap
	      yields  better performance.  However, --mmap can cause undefined
	      behavior (including core dumps) if an input file	shrinks	 while
	      grep is operating, or if an I/O error occurs.

       -U, --binary
	      Treat  the  file(s) as binary.  By default, under MS-DOS and MS-
	      Windows, grep guesses the file type by looking at	 the  contents
	      of  the first 32KB read from the file.  If grep decides the file
	      is a text file, it strips the CR characters  from	 the  original
	      file  contents  (to  make	 regular expressions with ^ and $ work
	      correctly).  Specifying -U overrules this guesswork, causing all
	      files  to be read and passed to the matching mechanism verbatim;
	      if the file is a text file with CR/LF pairs at the end  of  each
	      line,  this  will	 cause some regular expressions to fail.  This
	      option has no effect on platforms	 other	than  MS-DOS  and  MS-
	      Windows.

       -z, --null-data
	      Treat  the  input	 as  a set of lines, each terminated by a zero
	      byte (the ASCII NUL character) instead of a newline.   Like  the
	      -Z  or --null option, this option can be used with commands like
	      sort -z to process arbitrary file names.

REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
       A regular expression is a pattern that  describes  a  set  of  strings.
       Regular	 expressions   are   constructed   analogously	to  arithmetic
       expressions, by using various operators to combine smaller expressions.

       grep understands two different versions of regular  expression  syntax:
       “basic”	and  “extended.”   In  GNU grep,  there	 is  no	 difference in
       available functionality using either syntax.  In other implementations,
       basic regular expressions are less powerful.  The following description
       applies to extended regular expressions; differences for basic  regular
       expressions are summarized afterwards.

       The  fundamental building blocks are the regular expressions that match
       a single character.  Most characters, including all letters and digits,
       are regular expressions that match themselves.  Any meta-character with
       special meaning may be quoted by preceding it with a backslash.

       The period . matches any single character.

   Character Classes and Bracket Expressions
       A bracket expression is a list of characters enclosed by [ and  ].   It
       matches	any  single  character in that list; if the first character of
       the list is the caret ^ then it matches any character not in the	 list.
       For  example,  the  regular  expression [0123456789] matches any single
       digit.

       Within a	 bracket  expression,  a  range	 expression  consists  of  two
       characters separated by a hyphen.  It matches any single character that
       sorts  between  the  two	 characters,  inclusive,  using	 the  locale's
       collating  sequence  and	 character set.	 For example, in the default C
       locale, [a-d] is equivalent to [abcd].  Many locales sort characters in
       dictionary   order,  and	 in  these  locales  [a-d]  is	typically  not
       equivalent to [abcd]; it might be equivalent to [aBbCcDd], for example.
       To  obtain  the	traditional interpretation of bracket expressions, you
       can use the C locale by setting the LC_ALL environment variable to  the
       value C.

       Finally,	 certain  named	 classes  of  characters are predefined within
       bracket expressions, as follows.	 Their names are self explanatory, and
       they   are   [:alnum:],	[:alpha:],  [:cntrl:],	[:digit:],  [:graph:],
       [:lower:], [:print:], [:punct:], [:space:], [:upper:], and  [:xdigit:].
       For  example,  [[:alnum:]]  means  [0-9A-Za-z],	except the latter form
       depends upon the C locale and the ASCII character encoding, whereas the
       former  is  independent	of  locale  and character set.	(Note that the
       brackets in these class names are part of the symbolic names, and  must
       be  included  in	 addition  to  the  brackets  delimiting  the  bracket
       expression.)  Most meta-characters lose their  special  meaning	inside
       bracket	expressions.   To  include  a  literal ] place it first in the
       list.  Similarly, to include a literal ^ place it anywhere  but	first.
       Finally, to include a literal - place it last.

   Anchoring
       The caret ^ and the dollar sign $ are meta-characters that respectively
       match the empty string at the beginning and end of a line.

   The Backslash Character and Special Expressions
       The symbols \< and \>  respectively  match  the	empty  string  at  the
       beginning and end of a word.  The symbol \b matches the empty string at
       the edge of a word, and \B matches the empty string provided  it's  not
       at  the edge of a word.	The symbol \w is a synonym for [[:alnum:]] and
       \W is a synonym for [^[:alnum:]].

   Repetition
       A regular expression may be  followed  by  one  of  several  repetition
       operators:
       ?      The preceding item is optional and matched at most once.
       *      The preceding item will be matched zero or more times.
       +      The preceding item will be matched one or more times.
       {n}    The preceding item is matched exactly n times.
       {n,}   The preceding item is matched n or more times.
       {,m}   The preceding item is matched at most m times.
       {n,m}  The  preceding  item  is	matched at least n times, but not more
	      than m times.

   Concatenation
       Two regular expressions may  be	concatenated;  the  resulting  regular
       expression  matches  any	 string formed by concatenating two substrings
       that respectively match the concatenated expressions.

   Alternation
       Two regular expressions may be joined by	 the  infix  operator  |;  the
       resulting   regular  expression	matches	 any  string  matching	either
       alternate expression.

   Precedence
       Repetition takes precedence over concatenation,	which  in  turn	 takes
       precedence  over	 alternation.	A  whole expression may be enclosed in
       parentheses  to	override   these   precedence	rules	and   form   a
       subexpression.

   Back References and Subexpressions
       The back-reference \n, where n is a single digit, matches the substring
       previously matched  by  the  nth	 parenthesized	subexpression  of  the
       regular expression.

   Basic vs Extended Regular Expressions
       In  basic  regular expressions the meta-characters ?, +, {, |, (, and )
       lose their special meaning; instead use the  backslashed	 versions  \?,
       \+, \{, \|, \(, and \).

       Traditional  egrep did not support the { meta-character, and some egrep
       implementations support \{ instead, so portable scripts should avoid  {
       in grep -E patterns and should use [{] to match a literal {.

       GNU grep -E attempts to support traditional usage by assuming that { is
       not  special  if	 it  would  be	the  start  of	an  invalid   interval
       specification.	For example, the command grep -E '{1' searches for the
       two-character string {1 instead of reporting  a	syntax	error  in  the
       regular	expression.  POSIX.2 allows this behavior as an extension, but
       portable scripts should avoid it.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       The  behavior  of  grep	is  affected  by  the  following   environment
       variables.

       The  locale  for	 category  LC_foo  is specified by examining the three
       environment variables LC_ALL, LC_foo, LANG, in that order.   The	 first
       of  these  variables that is set specifies the locale.  For example, if
       LC_ALL is not set, but LC_MESSAGES is set to pt_BR, then the  Brazilian
       Portuguese  locale  is used for the LC_MESSAGES category.  The C locale
       is used if none of these environment variables are set, if  the	locale
       catalog	is  not	 installed,  or if grep was not compiled with national
       language support (NLS).

       GREP_OPTIONS
	      This variable specifies default options to be placed in front of
	      any   explicit   options.	   For	example,  if  GREP_OPTIONS  is
	      '--binary-files=without-match --directories=skip', grep  behaves
	      as   if	the   two   options  --binary-files=without-match  and
	      --directories=skip  had  been  specified	before	any   explicit
	      options.	 Option specifications are separated by whitespace.  A
	      backslash escapes the next character,  so	 it  can  be  used  to
	      specify an option containing whitespace or a backslash.

       GREP_COLOR
	      This  variable  specifies	 the  color  used to highlight matched
	      (non-empty) text.	 It is deprecated in favor of GREP_COLORS, but
	      still supported.	The mt, ms, and mc capabilities of GREP_COLORS
	      have priority over it.  It can only specify the  color  used  to
	      highlight	 the  matching	non-empty text in any matching line (a
	      selected line when the -v command-line option is omitted,	 or  a
	      context line when -v is specified).  The default is 01;31, which
	      means a bold red	foreground  text  on  the  terminal's  default
	      background.

       GREP_COLORS
	      Specifies	 the  colors  and  other  attributes used to highlight
	      various parts of the output.  Its	 value	is  a  colon-separated
	      list	 of	  capabilities	    that      defaults	    to
	      ms=01;31:mc=01;31:sl=:cx=:fn=35:ln=32:bn=32:se=36	 with  the  rv
	      and  ne  boolean	capabilities omitted (i.e., false).  Supported
	      capabilities are as follows.

	      sl=    SGR substring for whole selected  lines  (i.e.,  matching
		     lines when the -v command-line option is omitted, or non-
		     matching lines when -v is	specified).   If  however  the
		     boolean  rv capability and the -v command-line option are
		     both specified, it	 applies  to  context  matching	 lines
		     instead.	The  default  is  empty	 (i.e., the terminal's
		     default color pair).

	      cx=    SGR substring for whole context lines (i.e., non-matching
		     lines  when  the  -v  command-line	 option is omitted, or
		     matching lines when -v is	specified).   If  however  the
		     boolean  rv capability and the -v command-line option are
		     both specified, it applies to selected non-matching lines
		     instead.	The  default  is  empty	 (i.e., the terminal's
		     default color pair).

	      rv     Boolean value that reverses (swaps) the meanings  of  the
		     sl=  and cx= capabilities when the -v command-line option
		     is specified.  The default is false (i.e., the capability
		     is omitted).

	      mt=01;31
		     SGR substring for matching non-empty text in any matching
		     line (i.e., a selected  line  when	 the  -v  command-line
		     option   is  omitted,  or	a  context  line  when	-v  is
		     specified).  Setting this is equivalent to	 setting  both
		     ms=  and mc= at once to the same value.  The default is a
		     bold  red	text  foreground   over	  the	current	  line
		     background.

	      ms=01;31
		     SGR  substring  for matching non-empty text in a selected
		     line.  (This is only used when the -v command-line option
		     is	 omitted.)   The  effect  of  the  sl=	(or cx= if rv)
		     capability	 remains  active  when	this  kicks  in.   The
		     default  is  a  bold red text foreground over the current
		     line background.

	      mc=01;31
		     SGR substring for matching non-empty text	in  a  context
		     line.  (This is only used when the -v command-line option
		     is specified.)  The effect of the	cx=  (or  sl=  if  rv)
		     capability	 remains  active  when	this  kicks  in.   The
		     default is a bold red text foreground  over  the  current
		     line background.

	      fn=35  SGR  substring for file names prefixing any content line.
		     The  default  is  a  magenta  text	 foreground  over  the
		     terminal's default background.

	      ln=32  SGR  substring  for  line	numbers	 prefixing any content
		     line.  The default is a green text	 foreground  over  the
		     terminal's default background.

	      bn=32  SGR  substring  for  byte	offsets	 prefixing any content
		     line.  The default is a green text	 foreground  over  the
		     terminal's default background.

	      se=36  SGR  substring  for  separators that are inserted between
		     selected line fields (:), between	context	 line  fields,
		     (-),  and	between	 groups of adjacent lines when nonzero
		     context is specified (--).	 The default is	 a  cyan  text
		     foreground over the terminal's default background.

	      ne     Boolean  value  that prevents clearing to the end of line
		     using Erase in Line (EL) to Right	(\33[K)	 each  time  a
		     colorized	item  ends.   This  is	needed on terminals on
		     which EL is not supported.	 It  is	 otherwise  useful  on
		     terminals	for  which  the back_color_erase (bce) boolean
		     terminfo capability  does	not  apply,  when  the	chosen
		     highlight colors do not affect the background, or when EL
		     is too slow or causes too much flicker.  The  default  is
		     false (i.e., the capability is omitted).

	      Note  that  boolean  capabilities	 have no =...  part.  They are
	      omitted (i.e., false) by default and become true when specified.

	      See  the	Select	Graphic	 Rendition  (SGR)   section   in   the
	      documentation  of	 the  text terminal that is used for permitted
	      values  and  their  meaning  as  character  attributes.	 These
	      substring	 values are integers in decimal representation and can
	      be concatenated with semicolons.	grep takes care of  assembling
	      the  result  into	 a  complete  SGR sequence (\33[...m).	Common
	      values to concatenate include 1 for bold, 4 for underline, 5 for
	      blink,  7 for inverse, 39 for default foreground color, 30 to 37
	      for foreground colors, 90 to 97  for  16-color  mode  foreground
	      colors,  38;5;0  to  38;5;255  for  88-color and 256-color modes
	      foreground colors, 49 for default background color, 40 to 47 for
	      background  colors,  100	to  107	 for  16-color mode background
	      colors, and 48;5;0 to 48;5;255 for 88-color and 256-color	 modes
	      background colors.

       LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, LANG
	      These  variables specify the locale for the LC_COLLATE category,
	      which determines the collating sequence used to interpret	 range
	      expressions like [a-z].

       LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LANG
	      These  variables	specify	 the locale for the LC_CTYPE category,
	      which determines the type of characters, e.g., which  characters
	      are whitespace.

       LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES, LANG
	      These variables specify the locale for the LC_MESSAGES category,
	      which determines the language that grep uses for messages.   The
	      default C locale uses American English messages.

       POSIXLY_CORRECT
	      If  set,	grep  behaves  as  POSIX.2  requires;  otherwise, grep
	      behaves more like other GNU  programs.   POSIX.2	requires  that
	      options that follow file names must be treated as file names; by
	      default, such options are permuted to the front of  the  operand
	      list  and	 are  treated as options.  Also, POSIX.2 requires that
	      unrecognized options be diagnosed as “illegal”, but  since  they
	      are  not	really against the law the default is to diagnose them
	      as      “invalid”.       POSIXLY_CORRECT	    also      disables
	      _N_GNU_nonoption_argv_flags_, described below.

       _N_GNU_nonoption_argv_flags_
	      (Here  N is grep's numeric process ID.)  If the ith character of
	      this environment variable's value is 1, do not consider the  ith
	      operand  of  grep to be an option, even if it appears to be one.
	      A shell can put  this  variable  in  the	environment  for  each
	      command  it  runs,  specifying which operands are the results of
	      file name wildcard expansion and therefore should not be treated
	      as  options.   This  behavior  is	 available only with the GNU C
	      library, and only when POSIXLY_CORRECT is not set.

EXIT STATUS
       Normally, the exit status is 0  if  selected  lines  are	 found	and  1
       otherwise.   But	 the exit status is 2 if an error occurred, unless the
       -q or --quiet or --silent option is used and a selected line is	found.
       Note,  however,	that  POSIX  only mandates, for programs such as grep,
       cmp, and diff, that the exit status in case of error be greater than 1;
       it  is  therefore  advisable, for the sake of portability, to use logic
       that tests for  this  general  condition	 instead  of  strict  equality
       with 2.

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

       This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is
       NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR	 A  PARTICULAR
       PURPOSE.

BUGS
   Reporting Bugs
       Email  bug reports to <bug-grep@gnu.org>, a mailing list whose web page
       is <http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-grep>.   grep's  Savannah
       bug tracker is located at <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=grep>.

   Known Bugs
       Large  repetition  counts  in the {n,m} construct may cause grep to use
       lots of memory.	In addition, certain other obscure regular expressions
       require	exponential  time  and space, and may cause grep to run out of
       memory.

       Back-references are very slow, and may require exponential time.

SEE ALSO
   Regular Manual Pages
       awk(1), cmp(1), diff(1), find(1), gzip(1),  perl(1),  sed(1),  sort(1),
       xargs(1),   zgrep(1),   mmap(2),	  read(2),   pcre(3),  pcrepattern(3),
       terminfo(5), glob(7), regex(7).

   POSIX Programmer's Manual Page
       grep(1p).

   TeXinfo Documentation
       The full documentation for grep is maintained as a TeXinfo manual.   If
       the  info  and  grep  programs are properly installed at your site, the
       command

	      info grep

       should give you access to the complete manual.

NOTES
       GNU's not Unix, but Unix is a beast; its plural form is Unixen.

GNU grep 2.5.1-cvs		  2008-02-07			       GREP(1)
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